Damn! It seems there's a bit of -8 hose between the compressor and the condensor. I'll have to spec that when I order all of the fittings.

My twenty feet of -6 and -10 R134 hose arrived and is now installed. Twenty feet is way too much but 1 inch short is way too little.

Wizard rad is on order as I found major fin damage on mine when I pulled it out. I know it was a freshly rebuilt rad and I know the stock fan is bent up and laying in a corner so I assume the two are related. I have no recollection of an event however? Getting old is really a mixed blessing....

 

I've been on vacation for the last week and devoted it to the rear brakes. After ditthering for days on moving the giant rear end I finally broke down and started disassembling where it lay. That got me down to just the diff assembly and I was really stuck how to deal with that. After a while I hoisted it with a fixed engine hoist and bolted it to an engine stand. Voila! I can work on it. Where I was initially concerned the diff was dry, as there were no leaks, it has more than compensated since I've rolled it around.

Inspecting the internals went well as the gears looked good and I discovered I had a powerLok 3.79 diff {49/13}.

Finally got to the entire point of this megaDollar excercise, I had to fix a dragging left rear brake. After a few miles it would get hot and seize the brakes.

I found the left side caliper pucks glued in place with old fluid and the big side seals burnt to a crisp from dragging. I won't pull the other side until I get this one reassembled and back in place but I suspect I'll find similar.

When complete we can start reassembling this car for the 2020 driving season....

As an aside, I've been driving the 69 E-Type lately, so sweet even in it's so worn state

 

Turns out the other side caliper was burnt up even worse! Semi metallic pads crumbled when I pulled them out? All better now and the rear is 99% reassembled. I have to fab one brakeline tomorrow as I cut it with wirecutters during disseembly.

Should have the thing rollable again this weekend.

Madera concepts shipped my wood Monday or Tuesday so that's a big move forward.

Last weekend I finalized the new condenser mounts and that's in with a solidly mounted fan. Gotta sort out the drier/trinary switch as well as mount a bigass trans cooler with fan in the front of the fenderwell. The Alloy rad guys forgot to give me a trans cooler so I have to go this extra step.

Also, starting to cave in to my beautiful bartender friend, I'm starting to think it needs painting while it's apart.....

 

Wow, freakin Wow! I got my wood back from Madera and I'm flabbergasted. I've only unwrapped the center dash piece so far but that one piece is astounding. It's thicker and glossier than I expected and the color is darker and more gray than I expected but that's not complaining. That's just a quibble. If BAS sends back seats anywhere near the quality of Madera's work I'm going to have way more than I deserve.

And with that, I'm coming around to the idea that I must repaint this ostrich egg surface to be worthy of the interior....

Dammit, you all knew this was coming didn't ya?

 

Congrats. happy to hear that the wood turned out so well.

Lin

 

Steve,


You only live once. I have seen the quality of Madera Concepts and they are one of the best so you cannot have a show quality wood interior with a old paint job go for it!


I was almost going to paint the leather but when you go that far it was well worth the extra money to redo all of my interior with new leather and I was able to get it at a very reasonable price at Super Auto Upholstery and never regretted it.


I am glad you had a quality company do the wood. I was lucky to have a friend whom used to do high end automotive wood. I have seen some people try to do the wood themselves and it never is close to the level of places like Madera Concepts and the wood on a Jaguar is one of the distinctive areas people look at.

 

Hmmm...With the rear assembly bolted back in I'm poking around the interior formulating the next steps.

The headliner is a mess but I'm loathe to disturb it. Even more so, I'm scared of attempting repair of the rotten window seal. Is new glass even available for these cars?

But the real question...I bought a big box of Hushmat when I started clearing out the interior. I was surprised to get sheets of 1/8" thick rubber sound deadening material. OK that'll help with noise but I need insulation so I ordered a box of the famous Dynamat extreme. Ummm, another box of the same material arrives. Now I'm confused.

Do I reuse the old smelly jute pads or is there yet another product I need to be buying to get that seamlessly perfect foil floor all the websites illustrate? Or is this black rubber stuff the magic to keep Las Vegas asphalt heat outside the floors?

Hmmm, looks like I need to send many more hundreds to Dynamat and get their Dynaliner to go on top of the Dynamat....

 

Steve,


The glass is available so definitely put a new headliner or have an upholstery shop do that for you. XK's Unlimited sells the new glass both tinted and non-tinted.


I used that liquid sound deadener paint then I applied Dynamat over it and the car is very quiet. What I recommend is to add extra layers of Dynamat and/or any special version for heat on the firewall. When you stuff a decent horsepower V8, etc. and with the close and tight fit of the headers you will find the firewall and the steering column can get a lot of heat that can warm the interior.

 

Hi Steve,
Rack and pinion linkage:

I had looked in the Jaguar Forums for the part numbers with no luck, but I just waded through the archives on the archaic Saloon Lovers sight and found the following:

Borgeson Universal Co.
1- 409418 3/4'' DD Shaft, 18'' long $25.00
1- 409536 1'' DD Tube, 36'' long $46.71
1- 034937 Vibration Ujoint, Steel, 3/4''DD x 3/4''-48 $116.03
1- 015237 Ujoint, 1'' DD x 3/4''-48 $ 79.71
TOTAL $267.45 PLUS SHIPPING

I think this came from Richard Oliphant. Are these the parts that you ordered and did you find them to work or did you have to make adjustments?

Thanks so much!

Lin

 

That configuration seems to be perfect. Would've bought a straight shaft but I like the sliding shaft config. I probably have enough of one of the pieces to set you up, one of them is a long piece of stock. I'll have to look and jog my memory on Friday...

 

Thank you Steve!
Is it painted yet? 😀
Lin

 

Not for quite a while yet...

An out-of-work buddy of mine has been commissioned to do the prep work. This could turn a bit uncomfortable before it's over. I know he knows his stuff but I'm a bit worried our expectations and levels of prep may differ.There's a lot of "ostrich egg" surface where the original paint and primer let go and was simply sprayed over. All of that must go to bare metal or it will be back in a year.
Beyond that, he's a big fan of basecoat/clearcoat whilst I don't trust it at all.

We'll see how things develop

 

Everything in my garage has a thin coat of yellow upon it

Bodies looking pretty good though. This guy is good and is quickly dealing with major problem areas. I came home last night to discover a nice right rear flank where there were big ripples. Turns out he'd mixed some of my lovely glasurit high build primer and shot a bunch of the right side. In the flourescent lights it looked identical but today in the sun I can see where he primed. Very pleased so far....:icon_arrow:

Kennard's back this morning assaulting some of the problem areas. The guy is amazing. We're thinking we'll be buying paint next weekend. I'm leaning toward either my old standby Centari for an ordinary job but I have enough Glasurit products left over to justify that expense. I've got a week to stew on it but I'm thinking Glasso just now. A bit scary, he's been shooting the Glasso yellow high build primer without hardener. It seems OK so far but I broke out the Glasurit manual and showed him the half gallon of hardener....

 

I'm having a real problem getting the Pale Primrose for my 1966
car. Something with lead in the toners.

Does anyone have the formula for this color in Dupont?? Or a
source of decent quality paint in this color?

Any leads appreciated

Steve

Resolved...Ordered a gallon of Glasso to be available in two weeks.

 

This is where we are at the moment... High build primer is on , prepped and waiting for the glasurit 22 to come to America. nOT DOING bc/cc CONFUSED THEM BUT THEY QUICKLY DID THE MATH SO i GOT MY WAY goldderned capslock!!!!!!!!

I wish I could destroy that button

 

WooHoo!!!

We may be spraying Pale Primrose tomorrow. Thursday afternoon the paint finally arrived so I opened it and did a dab on the lid as I always do. I was VERY disappointed and wondered why I'd spent so much money and so much effort for THAT?

Friday morning my friend came over and said "let's do the jambs". He's a real painter so I'm following his lead....


Wow, Freakin Wow!

While it still looks like it belongs in a kitchen instead of my Jag, it looks Awesome in the small applications. Tomorrow we'll see the rest

 

Good luck. I am sure it wil turn out great!
Lin

 

Whoooo, it didn't.

My 700$ a gallon Glasurit is rife with orange peel and a few runs. I should've done it myself. At least then I could've discounted the results as my own ignorance. And indeed, it was my own ignorance,

Now I have tons of sanding, what I wanted to avoid, and then respray a color coat. I hate orangepeel.

Right off the bat I was alarmed as he didn't do a tack coat, simply sprayed heavy onto a 2x2 foot area and then moved on. I figured it was just something I didn't know and watched.

Thankfully I still have a half gallon of paint so I can fix this......

Live and learn






And now, many hours later it still looks bad but not as horrific as I first thought. It is still settling or maybe I'm just getting used to it.

I can fix this. It's immensely better than before and the color is actually pretty nice. Ideal for a sunny kitchen but it works on the Jag. Much better than the cadillac yellow that was on it. I'm gonna be very happy in a few months.


Now I've gotta start looking hard for a 3.8 head........

 

doh!

I've gotta drop the rear end again for a bad brake line. I'll try to just change it but I suspect the bottom of the nut will be flared now from tightening attempts. It,s the long one from the T to the passenger side caliper. I am cautiously optimistic...

Happy Boxing Day...!

 

I have to say the paint is coming up great. Kennard really knows what he's doing. It's not gonna be concours but I never asked for that nor am I paying for such perfection. We're doing great.

I'd post a pic but I'm limited to my apple prod.ucts these days and don't yet know how. Easy, I'll bet....